INDIA STOCKS-Indian shares overcome initial jitters as Reliance, ICICI Bank rebound

By Bharath Rajeswaran and Vivek Kumar M

Feb 20 (Reuters) - Indian share benchmarks overcame initial jitters and rose by the mid-day trading session on Friday, as heavyweight stocks clawed back some of the previous session's losses.

The Nifty 50 .NSEI added 0.54% to 25,592.6, and the BSE Sensex .BSESN rose 0.48% to 82,897.3, as of 12:11 p.m. IST. They had fallen about 0.3% at the open, extending a 1.5% decline in the previous session, their steepest single-day drop in over two weeks.

Fifteen of the 16 major sectors traded higher. The broader small-caps .NIFSMCP100 and mid-caps .NIFMDCP100 added 0.1% and 0.5%, respectively.

"What we are seeing today is more of a tactical bounce from Nifty 50's 200-day simple moving average (SMA) of around 25,300 points," said Naveen Vyas, head of family office at Anand Rathi Global Finance.

Heavyweights Reliance Industries RELI.NS and ICICI Bank ICBK.NS rose 0.9% and 0.7%, respectively, on Friday, after a 2.2% and 1.4% drop in the previous session.

Meanwhile, the volatility index - a measure of the market's expected volatility for the next 30 days - spiked this week to 14.36, just shy of an eight-month high hit in the run-up to the federal budget on February 1.

This comes after Brent crude oil prices rose to $72 per barrel amid tensions in the Middle East. Higher crude prices are a negative for India as it is the world's third-largest crude oil importer. O/R

"We are still not out of the woods. If Brent crude surpasses $75 per barrell and stays at that level for a couple of months, that could put further pressure on Indian equities," said Vyas.

The IT index .NIFTYIT was the sole loser among major sectors, down 0.5% as ongoing concerns over the impact of AI-linked disruption on earnings continued to weigh.